So much for that

Remember just after 9/11 how the entire world was sympathetic to the US and people who found glee in the fall of the towers, or who blamed the US for their misfortune etc were the wackos and the sickos? We could even justify the invasion of Afghanistan with a well the US didn't start it or at least weren't the ones who escalated the conflict argument.

Then swiftly the world's opinion turned as retaliation and protection turned into naked aggression and an invasion of Iraq. Today Obama is still trying to get folks to change their opinion on the US to something more positive.

Well I'm finding the current Chris Brown/Rhianna episode somewhat similar somewhat. Initially we were all aghast over Chris Brown's behavior and there was no shortage of pity for glamour girl Rhianna. What kind of sick dude beats up a woman like that? Shame on him, shame shame shame. He deserve a good thrashing and some jail time and two cement bricks pelting at his head and a proper cutass.

And I still think he does actually but .....

The sympathy factor for Rhianna is starting to seriously fade because of her actions post beating. Even fellow females aren't really feeling that sympathetic towards her these days as with every news item or rumour you are left wondering just how stupid is this girl?

Yes she still didn't deserve her beating, no one does but why is she putting herself in a situation ie staying with Brown or letting him off the hook where she could be in harms way again? Did the beating cause some sort of head damage? Is she just that naive? There is fools falling in love and then there is stark raving madness and idiocy of the highest degree. From everyone's perspective other than it appears Rhianna her actions fall in the latter category.

And who the hell are her handlers and advisers? You mean there isn't someone to say girl look at how the man smash your face to a pulp? Do you seriously want to stay with him after that? Do you seriously not think he deserves to be punished? Why are you allegedly spending time with him? Stay the hell away from homeboy! Why not let the judge get a restraining order on him? Do you not realize that you are also harming your career by doing what you're doing now. You are making yourself into an object of ridicule and derision.

And yes I agree its always difficult to look at these situations from the outside with limited info and know exactly whats going on but damn the police report, a report based on your evidence, said the man went all WWF on her, headlocks and slamming head into car windows and all. These actions do not qualify as love taps, they qualify as unadulterated abuse.

And while its always in these cases easy to sympathize with a target, its harder to maintain that sympathy when the target does nothing to withdraw from the abusive situation or tries to lay it off. We feel like we're misplacing our emotions, like well why should we waste our time feeling sorry for you when you obviously don't care enough about yourself to try to put things straight. We feel like our initial outrage and anger has been thrown back into our faces by you.

Its a valid reaction.

Wake up girl, ya mekkin bajans and women all over the world shame.

Ok I'm Rhi-loaded

The brother Bajan Reporter has a very nicely put together article over at his site about Miss Rhianna and a whole heap of celebrities in the news for the wrong reason and our societies occupation with schadenfreude. Check that out!

I myself had some more to (ramble) say on this whole situation.

He said, she said, I heard it through the grapevine!


For one when I first posted I really didn't realize the extent to which the alleged beating had gone. I using that word alleged cause although the man has been arrested it all still really hasn't been confirmed entirely and we're inundated with rumors, truth, slander, speculation and photoshopped jpegs all rolled up into one ball right now and being distributed as fact.

But still a discerning spectator could probably make a decent read of all the information out there and come to some valid, hopefully at least semi-factual conclusions which is what I'm trying to do right now.

For one as I was trying to say with that other sentence that started for one, the only fact, semi-fact, we know appears to be that Rhianna if she is indeed the victim (as might be concluded by her sudden cancellation of two concerts a foreign this week) was beaten pretty badly. This wasn't no two slap push thing (not that we condone those either. This was on some punks jump up to get beat down, i caught you tiefing my grandmother money or troubling my chile, pugilism 101 type ish. Punches were not pulled. There seems to be no doubt of that. Blows were shared, a young lady's face was rearranged, buss lip, black eye, contusions etc and there is possibility of cosmetic surgery to fix the damage (speculation on that last part so far though).

But what caused the incident? Speculation galore! Was it flirting with Leona Lewis, somebody sharing his and her peas (without the rice to go along with it), text messages, Rhianna's supposedly controlling and jealous nature, car keys getting tossed, the natural reaction to hearing the Umbrella song just one time too many or Chris Brown's out of control latent mutant powers flaring up nuhbody can tell and likely never will be able to say what really happened between the two of them. He say, she say!

What is fact though is that the reaction around the world, online, on radio shows etc has been varied. Now I'm not one to say guilty until proven innocent and yea I'm bajan like Rhianna (although I don really dig her music and was probably a bigger fan of Chris Brown than her prior to this) so I may be biased but could we strip this situation down to its essence, remove the celebrity statuses and the biases towards the individuals involved. If we could do that I find it difficult that anyone could justify or give a pass to a dude who would beat up his girl like that (allegedly).

But like the saying goes everybody cant hate ya and Chris Brown for all the discussion about his actions still seems to have a fair amount of fans who can justify his actions by rumours of stds (still trying to figure out what this got to do with standard deviation?), jealousy, Lamborghini keys being dashed way and feisty uncontrollable too jealous Caribbean female traits. I'm sorry I really cant understand how anything like that comes close to justifying his actions but maybe its just me.

Stop spreading rumours rumours rumours about me.

Then there are the rumours as to this not being their first battle and Chris's alleged destroying of this that and the third that belonged to Rhianna on his last trip to Barbados possibly the result of alleged jealousy as well. Who knows! But it does bring into focus a question as to whether this was his first (alleged) abuse in this relationship or whether Rhianna had already felt his wrath (allegedly).

That of course leads to the old "well how stupid is this girl that she would stick with someone who abuses her" question which has been asked of thousands of women, celebrity and non-celebrity over the years.

If this isn't the first time why did she stick with him? Should we write her off as an idiot and feel less sympathy for her and less derision for him if she didn't leave him at the first sign of trouble?

Does repeated domestic offense make it more palatable or less worthy of condemnation?

How will this affect both of their careers?

I'll leave the answers and conclusions up to you cause my brain just rambling.